The smallest state record “big fish”

Here we go again with another Westslope cutthroat trout story, but this time it was tipping scales the other way. 

Chubbuck angler Spencer Smith was wetting a line up at Alpine Creek Lake #14 in the Sawtooth Mountains, enjoying a warm, August day with little to no hopes of hooking anything record-worthy. 

Now, before you accuse me of hot-spotting this one, Alpine Lake #14 isn’t your neighborhood fishing pond. You won’t find a parking lot, vault toilet, or even a campground for miles. This alpine mountain like is like many other lakes found in the Sawtooth Mountains—remote, charming, and holding mountain cutthroats. 

However, it happened to be Spencer Smith’s luck that fine August day when he hooked what he immediately thought might be a contender for a state certified-weight record Westslope cutthroat trout. 

While this trout’s size may not be impressive, the effort needed to certify it as a record sure it. Smith successful in reeling in the 11-inch cutthroat, but then proceeded to pack the fish out of the mountains and had it weight at a certified scale near his home in Pocatello. 

When the record application got dropped on Fish and Game Sportfish Coordinator Koenig’s desk later that week, the 0.56-pound fish marked the first Westslope cutthroat trout that made it into the certified-weight record books since 2016 when Fish and Game started keeping separate records for each sub-species (Westslope, Bonneville, Yellowstone cutthroat trout). 

"Back in 2016, we overhauled the State Record Fish Program and started awarding catch-and-release records, but we also made other changes," said Koenig. "One of those included making separate categories for each of the cutthroat trout sub-species. Westslope cutthroat are catch and release in most places, so it took a while before we got a certified-weight record application for a Westslope cutthroat trout.”